On 2 December Maryiana
Valchkova, Judge of the Partyzanski District Court of Minsk, left standing the
ruling of the Partyzanski District Tax Inspection of Minsk of 19 October 2011,
according to which human rights defender Valiantsin Stefanovich was fined
4,727,330 rubles for “the failure to mention the whole sum of taxable income
through inattentiveness”.

Mr. Stefanovich filed an appeal with the head of the Minsk City Court, in which
he states that the ruling of the tax inspection is unlawful, groundless and
terminable.

To prove his position, he points at the fact that on 19 October the deputy head
of a department of the tax inspection Alena Kutnik, wanted him to sign the
ruling about the administrative violation before the consideration of the case
on its merits, which means that Stefanovich was found guilty before he could
give any explanations. When Stefanovich pointed at it in his address to the tax
inspection, its deputy head, Henadz Koval, stated that the document which had
been presented to the human rights defender was a “draft ruling”. “The
Process-Executive Code of Administrative Offenses doesn’t provide the existence
of such document as “draft ruling of administrative offense”, doesn’t determine
its production or, moreover, familiarization of the defendant in an
administrative case with this draft paper,” reads the appeal.

According to Valiantsin Stefanovich, this circumstance shows that officers of
the Partyzanski District Tax Inspection committed gross violations. Another
gross violation is that the administrative case was considered without taking
into account his explanations and other evidence which was important for taking
a right decision. No account for the admissibility and accuracy of such
evidence was paid either. Mr. Koval also dismissed Stefanovich’s motion for
complete translation of the printout of the information on his account in the
Lithuanian bank SEB, where the purpose of some financial transfers was
indicated in English. This information had an extreme importance for finding
whether Stefanovich was guilty of the violation he was charged with.

What concerns the consideration of his appeal at the Partyzanski District Court
of Minsk, Valiantsin Stefanovich also points at gross process violations
admitted by Judge Maryiana Valchkova. In particular, she admitted to the trial
as many as three representatives of the tax inspection: its deputy head,
H.Koval, the deputy head of an inspection department A.Kutnik and a representative
of the juridical department. “These persons gave explanations to the court
concerning the case. However, their explanations weren’t put, as no minutes of
the trial were lead,” states the human rights defender. Moreover, these
explanations aren’t mentioned or referred to in the verdict issued by Judge
Valchkova.

“Thus, I think that my appeal was considered by the Partyzanski District Court
of Minsk with gross violations of the present legislation. The judge held a
competitive trial instead studying the legality of the ruling of the tax
inspection,” writes Stefanovich in appeal to the head of the Minsk City Court.

He also attaches to the appeal a number of documents which are quite important
and can be considered as a reason to review the case. In particular, these are
statements from the sources of the financial transfers, in which it is stated
that these means weren’t transferred for Stefanovich, but were destined as
payments and transfers to third parties and therefore aren’t taxable.

“The bank printout doesn’t have a single seal or signature of a duty official
of the SEB Bank. There are no seals or signatures of representatives of any
state bodies of the Lithuanian
Republic, either. That’s
why the completeness and accuracy of the information, provided by the
plaintiff, cannot be verified, as well as the fact that this very information
was provided to state bodies of the Republic
of Belarus,” points
Stefanovich. That’s why he attaches a copy of the official statement of the
Ministry of Justice of the Republic
of Lithuania, according
to which the information which was presented by it earlier doesn’t correspond
to reality.